Blog Layout

The sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing

carriesuepepper • Sep 07, 2014

Sedge Fall is coming and it’s time to plant some new varieties of flowers and such. Yesterday, I brought home two pots of grasses; I’ve always loved the long, trailing grasses. This morning, I read the little tag on the one: Orange Sedge. Immediately, the words from Keat’s La Bell Dam Sans Merci came to me–“the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing.” I remembered reading it in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring which I read as a child.

I think these grasses cause such emotion in me because they remind me of the time I spent in North Carolina where they grew along the beach and the huge sand dunes at Nags Head; so different from the California coast where I  now live.

I will go back to the garden center for more of this one and plant the sedge in pots where it can blow in the wind and I will remember how I sat outside our beach motel room on the picnic table there at Nags Head after washing my long, waist-length hair, letting it blow dry in the sunny, salty sea air. I was 17.

Here is the poem, which was part of a letter Keats wrote to his brother, George:

La Belle Dame Sans Merci , 1819

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful – a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said –

‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes     With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep

And there I dreamed – Ah! woe betide! –

The latest dream I ever dreamt     On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci     Hath thee in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

Carrie Pepper

Relaunch

By Carrie Pepper • 15 Feb, 2024
Separate Lives

Time to Fly

By Carrie Pepper • 04 Feb, 2024
Today, while out on a walk in a very high wind, I spotted a little bird way up in the tip top of a bare oak tree; she was holding on every so tightly as the wind tossed and shook the branches. Hold on, little one, I thought. And just then, this quote came to mind. “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not in the branch, but in her own wings.” ― Charlie Wardle As I watched her, I imagined my own wings and wondered just how hard the wind is going to need to blow in my life for me to loosen them, pinned tightly to my sides, unfurl them—then TRUST as the currents lift me off my (branch) and I soar effortless and without fear.

Street Signs Can Be Memory Joggers

By Carrie Pepper • 30 Nov, 2023
Out on my morning walk, street signs acted as memory joggers. Perhaps they were nudges so that I could remember, and be grateful for, these two women who were there for me as a kid. BRADFORD was the first sign. Grammy Bradford. I never called her anything else and I have no idea what her first name was, but I do remember she was there to tend to me when I was little while my mother went off to work at her government job "in procurement," which she hated. I know nothing, really, of what she did there, but I do remember the room. It seemed there were hundreds of desks in this huge room, no partitions. Dark grey desks and heavy black telephones. I visited her there a few times and she'd give me tablets and pens to keep me busy. I was ALWAYS thrilled to have a tablet and a pen! What she did there is a mystery to me, but when she and my father would argue, which was often, she'd always say, "I want my own money," and so off she went to work every morning at the Defense General Supply Center. He told her she didn't need to work, that he could support her, but, again, she wanted her own money. Back to Mrs. Bradford, Grammy. She was a bit on the heavy side (which I thought made for the best, most cuddly hugs) with long grey hair that she wore up with tons of bobby pins. She always wore a floral bib apron with large pockets and she'd fill them with pears when we'd go to that special corner of our back yard. Oh the smell! Those yellow pears and the carpet of yellow leaves. Memories of Grammy Bradford brought back memories of Thelma Massenburg. She looked exactly like Aunt Jemima (OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES, we can't say Aunt Jemima anymore!) Recently a friend told me he'd made pancakes and I asked what kind of syrup he used. When he said, "Pearl Milling," I thought it sounded kinda cool, but when I looked it up I found out it was the new name for Aunt Jemima syrup. SERIOUSLY? Anyway, she was wonderful. She cleaned our house, scrubbed the floors and walls and worked harder than anyone I'd ever seen. I loved her. She always wore a bandana tied around her head. She lived in a tiny reddish tar papered house with ten children. Who knows where they all slept! She was diabetic and I was a little stinker and liked to tease her with Hershey Bars. I'd wave one in front of her nose and she'd smile and say," "You bad, chile." The last time I saw her she was in the hospital and her eyes were very, very yellow. Liver disease. The scarf that was always wrapped around her head was gone and I am sure that I could hear her say, "You bad, chile," although she probably didn't. Thank you my sweet Thelma. My Aunt Jemima.
More Posts
Share by: